The background description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
Health practitioners frequently use sutures to close various openings such as cuts, punctures, and incisions in various places in the human body. Depending on types and sizes of tissues to be sutured, and their locations, various different types of needles, suture threads, and suture devices can be used in the suturing process. Also, the size of the wound or apertures that can be sutured by a suturing device is often limited by a size or a radius of a needle, or the distance from the needle to the needle capture device. Thus, most of currently available suturing device are directed to a specific size of wounds or apertures, and are unsuitable for suturing a range of different sizes of wounds or apertures.
There are suturing devices that can adapt to different sizes of wounds or apertures by deploying needles at different distances from the body of the device. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,374,275 to Bradley discloses a suturing device having a needle platform, which enables the physician/operator/user to use hinged connectors to deploy a needle by desired incremental distances from the body of the device. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 7,449,024 to Stafford discloses a suture device having split, movable arms, wherein each of the arms is coupled with one needle. Stafford's arms are independently movable at different angles. For another example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,709,020 to Nobles discloses a suture device having suture clasp members, which can be hinged in different angles. For yet another example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,507,757 to Sauer discloses a trocar wound closure device having laterally deployable needle holders. The number of retractable needle holders can be increased to make them suitable for closing large trocar wounds.
Yet, none of prior arts allows the needles moving in different angles toward a target which retains suture threads, so-called “throw and catch” suturing.
All publications identified herein are incorporated by reference to the same extent as if each individual publication or patent application were specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.
Thus, there is still a need for improved systems and methods for suturing various sizes of apertures.